Hoyt co-captains Dubai World Cup race’s note team
Oaklawn Park has made a name for itself internationally, according to Oaklawn’s media relations manager, Jennifer Hoyt, who just returned from a weeklong trip covering the Dubai World Cup at Meydan Racecourse.
The Dubai World Cup, Hoyt said, was once the richest race before the Pegasus World Cup, “but it’s still a very significant racing event.”
“There’s nine races, the minimum race was $1 million,” she said. “Then the Dubai World Cup is a $10 million race.”
Hoyt served as co-captain of the notes team, a group comprised of 15 members, 12 of which were writers, and each team member’s job of covering different horsemen was based on where they were from.
“I covered Forever Unbridled who had won our Apple Blossom (Stakes) in 2016, and she was the champion older mare in 2017, so I talked to her trainer every day, followed her training, and wrote up a little blurb on her,” she said. “I covered Steve Asmussen’s 3-year-old that ran in the UAE Derby. And then I was given a trainer by the name of Michael de Kock, who is from South Africa, and he was very nice.
“I didn’t have as many horsemen as some of the other writers, but my job after coming up
with my notes was then to compile everybody’s notes and edit them for the first edit, and then I sent it to the co-captain to do the second edit.”
Hoyt said each day the team put together four news releases on every horse competing on the day of the races. The team mostly consisted of track publicists and turf writers, and had representation from across the globe.
“I worked with people, obviously, from North America, there was a gentleman there from Woodbine which is in Toronto, Canada, a woman that I’ve worked previously with from New Hampshire, then you had people from Japan, England, Ireland, France,” she said.
The Dubai World Cup experience is one Hoyt said every racing fan should have.
“Every racing fan should put it on their bucket list because there were 50,000 people there Saturday night and not a single person was betting,” she said. “You had the exact same electric atmosphere that you get on Arkansas Derby Day, that you get on Kentucky Derby Day, that you get on Breeders’ Cup Day, but it’s almost heightened over there because there’s such a passion for racing. It’s a pure passion for racing.
“Sheikh Mohammed, who is the ruler of Dubai and head of the royal family over there, he loves racing and he does not spare any expense. There is an awards night and it was first class. Cirque du Soleil performed, and not only do they have shows all over, but this one was a Cirque du Soleil choreographed specifically for the World Cup.”
Michael Adolphson, media relations manager for Meydan Racecourse, invited Hoyt to be on the notes team, having worked with her in the past on the Breeders’ Cup and Kentucky Derby notes teams. Hoyt said she hopes to integrate some of her experience working with the team into covering the Arkansas Derby.
“From a media standpoint, I definitely have some ideas of how I want it to kind of work — actually that I’m going to start applying for the Arkansas Derby notes next week — that streamlined a lot of things,” she said. “They did a lot of video interviews and sent that out to the media, and basically part of our role we had a lot of our trainers there where we went to the press conference and kind of helped get the questions going.
“They definitely take social media very seriously. They do have a lot of respect for people on social media, they have a lot of influencers which here in the United States we kind of are not so sold on influencers. But they really find it important. I was kind of skeptical about it before going to Dubai when I saw the value they were putting toward these.”
Hoyt said the U.S. sent 15 of its best horses to compete in six races for the event which she said had opening ceremonies “that are like being at the Olympics.”
“There were probably over 120 different horses competing and they were literally from every part of the world,” she said. “There were 15 American horses running, and it was the best of the best of American racing. You had the champion older filly running in the World Cup, you had your champion 3-year-old from last year, West Coast, you had your champion older mare, you had your champion sprinter. So the Americans sent the best of the best over there. We had a very rough night in that only one American horse won. The horse from America named Mind Your Biscuits, he won the sprint race over there, and we were still very well-represented.”
Despite the U.S. only bringing home one win, Hoyt said the appreciation and passion for the sport were contagious.
“You definitely get a sense of appreciation, not only that they value what you’re providing as far as the services we provided on the notes team, but also as fellow racing enthusiasts,” she said. “From the moment we got there it was just first-class treatment.
“In a lot of ways the atmosphere is the same as you get here at Oaklawn because here, we’re very fortunate in that we have large crowds that love horse racing. Not every race track can say that. We’ll have 60,000 people here for Arkansas Derby Day and a lot of them are just here for the pageantry of it.”
The highlight of her experience, however, wasn’t so much the pomp and circumstance surrounding the event.
“I always love going out to the track in the morning, I love watching workouts and here sometimes I don’t have time to spend out in the barn area that I did there,” Hoyt said. “We also toured around a little bit and went to the Dubai Mall, it’s one of the world’s largest malls. … And then we traveled down the gold market. That’s kind of more of your old part of the city. The city itself looks brand-new with lots of construction going on. The city is just towered by these amazing buildings.”
With many of the world’s best horses all in one place, and representation from race tracks across the globe, Oaklawn has already made a name for itself, she said.
“I really appreciate that Oaklawn allowed me to go and were so supportive of me going. It was during the race meet, but what’s funny is even if you tell people from France or from England you’re from Oaklawn, they know exactly who we are,” she said. “You don’t even think people would even know what Oaklawn is, but we definitely have an international reputation.”